The artists featured here have converted everyday trash items into pieces of contemporary art. This process, which some call “upcycling,” is pretty popular among contemporary artists these days. I’ve found a zillion beautiful and creative examples of upcycling; so I’ll be posting what I’ve found over the next few weeks. This is just a sample…
Tim Nobel & Sue Webster
Tim and Sue collect trash from the streets of London and position the items in a way that creates surprising silhouettes.
Vik Muniz
Muniz arranges his collages, takes a picture of the completed work, and then destroys the original piece so that only the photograph remains.
Bernard Pras
Pras, a French artist who spent his childhood in a toy store, stacks ordinary objects over celebrity portraits to form a collage- a process called anamorphosis.
Even though an overwhelming number of credible scientific institutions, politicians (both Republicans and Democrats), and international organizations say otherwise, a large number of people still deny that global warming exists. Chances are, some of those people are your family members or friends. So if you’re visiting your relatives or standing around at an office party this holiday season and a climate change debate starts up, here are a few things you can say/do to change a skeptic’s mind:
2. Ask them to read this clear and concise document about the science behind climate change. I found it easy to understand and science isn’t my forte at all.
3. Remind them that there are many prestigious universities that offer global warming as a course of study, i.e. you can get a whole PhD or Masters Degree in climate change. Think about it, Columbia University is willing to put its reputation on the line, along with huge amounts of money, for the sake of climate change research. If they think environmental degradation is that important, so should your friends.
4. The United Nations believes in climate change. In fact, they’ve created an entire offshoot program that is solely dedicated to curbing global warming. An organization which represents the entire world thinks it’s important enough too.
I hope this helps, and if it doesn’t–humor works too:
A new environmental protection measure was approved by regulators in my home state this week. According to the New York Times, California energy commissioners unanimously voted to “require television manufacturers to produce new models that use 33 percent less electricity by 2011 and 49 percent less electricity by 2013”. So the environment has the government to thank for cracking down on the big TV companies about energy conservation. This move toward a greener future means that California will be saving $8.1 billion in energy costs. It is specifically important to target television’s energy consumption because it generally guzzles more power than other household appliances. Also, as more people buy bigger sets and spend more and more time watching reality shows, greater stress will be put on the environment because of power plant pollution.
Of course not everyone is jumping on board with the new regulations. Sony, Panasonic and other television manufacturers are openly opposed, claiming that such restrictions will raise prices and limit the company’s creative license. While it might be true that costs will go up for manufacturers in the research and development field, it is the consumer who really wins out in the end. I’m not sure how much shoppers will be complaining about paying a little extra for their new flat screens when the overall savings for California electricity consumers is almost $1 billion per year.
Yesterday I got a chance to see my favorite author speak at a bookstore in Boston. Jonathon Safran Foer, the acclaimed novelist of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and Everything is Illuminated, has recently turned toward nonfiction with his latest book, Eating Animals. At the risk of understating the importance of this book, I’ll say that it’s about being a vegetarian. But really it’s so much more. Eating Animals covers a wide array of issues focusing on factory farming and its subsequent environmental effects. Child obesity, greenhouse gas emissions, fatherhood, education reform…it’s all there.
For a Jewish vegetarian from New York, one might expect Foer to be one of those guys with a degree in pot-smoking from Berkeley. Actually, the way that he insists on an urgent shift from indifference to environmental action is moderate. He doesn’t go on any tirades and he isn’t beating the drum for veganism. The author explained how he has spent the last three years compiling data, visiting farmers and talking to experts about the links between the food we eat and the health of our bodies, our earth, and the future generation. The statistics he uses are from conservative estimates and he had two independent fact checkers editing the book. So he’s got enough unbiased facts to make even someone who eats steaks like a caveman re-think his lifestyle. Eating Animals is worth a read because it’s a way to understand one of the most important issues of our day—the environmentally unfriendly sources of our food—without feeling heckled by Chicken Little.
I’m not trying to ruin anyone’s holiday vacation this year, but there is something you might want to think about before you jet off to those white sandy beaches.
Mangroves are trees that live in coastal regions and feed off of salt water. They’re a staple in the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Cancun, Brazil and elsewhere. Almost anywhere you dream of being while sitting at your desk on stormy days happens to be home to mangrove trees. But thanks to the big guys in the hotel industry, mangrove forests are soon to be a thing of the past.
Major hotel companies nudge their way onto beaches and sunny locales despite contributing to the distinction of species and destroying local industries. Here’s the great irony: when you kill off the mangroves you make that fancy newly-built hotel all the more susceptible to hurricanes and disasters. This is because mangrove trees have the unique ability to store massive amounts of salt water in their roots. Water that is absorbed cannot rush into a person’s home or destroy property. But when you cut down mangroves, you are cutting down natural levees. Mangroves act as a natural barrier to debris kicked up during hurricanes. They filter the water, prevent erosion, and provide homes for various species of edible fish that locals traditionally feed off of. Of course killing the fish means there is no more fishing industry. And when indigenous people lose their one source of income they often have to resort to becoming an employee of the tourism industry which provides very little job security and even less income. These low wages force workers to live in makeshift homes, the first to be destroyed during a natural disaster.
And yet…
With climate change comes increased risk of natural disasters as well as rising sea levels—both of which threaten tourism world-wide. The deterioration of mangrove forests can be one reason to advocate for ecotourism. A conscious decision to support the environment and the local population of your vacation destination can truly make a difference.
